“The Sleeper”
(An Allegory)
The sky was a beautiful light blue, with feathery white clouds. The air was crispy that day next to a lake surrounded by cat tails. A young man lay back against a cherry tree, slumbering, a slight smile on his face. He looked so peaceful I almost hated to wake him, but I must for he was in great danger and didn’t know it.
Now, my name is “Vision” and my job for “The Most High God”, is to wake up sleepers. I stood on “The Great Highway” which has its’ beginning in a small village called Pentecost and has no end, it goes on forever. It’s called highway because it’s higher than anything ever built and it’s how you get to a far away place called “The Promised Land”. Now the name of the highway is simply called “The Way”. It’s built perfectly straight with no curves. There are yellow lines on each side of the highway to warn of the drop-off, there are two yellow lines in the middle that means, no passing. The highway is reserved for a peculiar people called “The Church”. Now there are those that walk along beside the Highway just off the drop-off, called “Spectators”. They are always tripping over stuff and falling. They think they’re on the highway, but they really aren’t.
As I looked down at the young man we will just call “Sleepy”, I thought, it must be tough to walk around blind, to see, but not to see. Oh well, that’s just the way it is. I gazed at him sternly and his eyes began to twitch. His head shook from side to side and his eyes popped open. He looked around and jumped straight up to his feet. The sky was black, the lake was dark and smelled putrid, the grass was dark brown as if dead. He began to run, tripping and falling over stuff. As far as he could see, it looked like a huge junk yard, everything looked blackish gray and colorless. The sound was terrible with loud screeching, dogs growling and people moaning in pain. “What is this?”, Sleepy began to scream, blood running down from his cuts and bruises. He suddenly whirled around and saw me standing on “The Great Highway”. “What is this he screamed again”? “Why”, I said, “don’t you recognize your own hometown, Sleepy”? “Who are you?” he said, “And my name is not Sleepy”! Then Sleepy looked at “The Great Highway” in amazement. It was high over his head and had color. There was the sweetest sound coming from many people walking and skipping along the highway. They were all going in the same direction. They were beautifully dressed, laughing and singing, it was magnificent. Sleepy looked at me again and chokingly said “What is that”? “Why, it’s the real world that you can’t see, while sleeping, Sleepy”, I said. Sleepy looked around and said,” Why is there color on the highway and not here?” “Because they live here and not where you are” I said. “You live in the “Fall” and they live in the Resurrection”. “They can see what you can’t see while they are awake and want no part of it. You are so used to it you don’t see it while awake. Remember those nightmares you have when asleep, well, this is not one of them. Your nightmares are more like the place where you live than you think. When you wake up, look around more carefully.”
“Do you remember seeing the school shootings on TV, the horrible storms, the gang wars, the broken marriages, the home invasions, drug addiction babies, the lies and deception in Government? They are the dark junk you keep tripping and falling over. On your best day by the lake and the cherry tree, all this was going on. You think it’s normal and that’s why you don’t really see it. All this came with the “Fall”, it was never supposed to be this way. What is the “Fall” you ask? The first two humans that the “Most High God”, made where Adam and his wife Eve. Well, the first piece of junk, dark and lying, walked into the beautiful garden and convinced them that they could see as well as “The Most High God”, if they would only follow him. Everything around them suddenly turned dark and their descendants have been tripping and falling over junk ever since. Man is now always seeing, but not seeing. Many years later, “The Most High God” sent “Jesus”, His Son, the forgiver of the sin of seeing but not seeing and all of those that really saw Him, followed Him out of the “Fall”. They are those you see on “The Great Highway””. Suddenly Sleepy was under the cherry tree sleeping again. The sky was blue, and the junk was hidden from him. “The Great Highway” also was hidden. Sleepy began to groan and jerk. His eyes opened, he jumped straight up on his feet and looked around. He looked at his arms, no blood, no bruises, no junk, all was bright and beautiful. He spun around, but there was no highway. “But it was so real, why can’t I see it. It was so real; it couldn’t have been a dream”. Then Sleepy, fell to the ground and said, “I can’t see you “Most High God”, but I want to, let me see”. Then in a blink of an eye, he was standing on “The Great Highway”, everything was bright, crisp and clean. He began to dance, skip and sing with the others there. As he moved along, he could see the dark black junk yard on both sides of “Great Highway”. Every now and then, he would hear a familiar sound, a moan coming out of the “Fall”. There was a gate on the side of “The Great Highway”. The sign over the top read “The Shepard’s Gate”. The gate would open for the one that heard the moan. He was given permission to go out to the sound and help them to see.
PS: OH, “Sleepy was given a new name”, “Samuel” (The Seer)
David McClary
avoicefromthemountian.com
